Arsenal lost for the second time in a week as their title hopes were all but ended. It seems a familiar story for the Gunners who currently remain in fourth position with 47 points, as stated on the Fotmob website. However, not only do all the teams (bar Chelsea) around them still have to play this weekend but they are currently twelve points behind the runaway leaders.
The match itself
Going in to this game, it was deemed a must win for Arsenal, particularly after the result in midweek. That was a 2-1 home defeat to Watford. But it was not meant to be.
It must be noted that, according to the stats, this was not a mauling. Arsenal had 58.5 percent of possession and registered nine shots in total. They even had thirteen corners. So what was the problem? They did not do enough with the ball when they had it. Take nothing away from Chelsea. Hazard as usual was exceptional and scored a wonderful goal to give Chelsea breathing space in the game. But far too often they were pedestrian and failed to seriously test the Chelsea goalkeeper. And then there were the mistakes, most notably that of Petr Cech, which gifted the ball and goal to Cesc Fabregas. As Dion Dublin stated on BBC, "Chelsea were just better in all departments". The result ended 3-1 to the blues.
What now?
So where does it leave us in the title race? Is it all over? Danny Mills seems to think so, saying, "the title is Chelsea's to lose". With such a gap, if the team was not playing well you could arguably say, 'you never know'. But here we all really do. The team has strength all over the pitch and as Eden Hazard stated on Sky Sports, "in tactics and training we do more with Conte".
It seems that all the players are well drilled, they know their individual jobs and it is working. Of course it helps when you have world class players at your disposal, but they have been mightily impressive.
Overall, it has been a very good week for Chelsea. Taking four points from two teams around them is some achievement. But for the rest of the chasing pack, it may well now be about securing Champions League football. I think the league has gone and the other teams know it.
